I will miss my room dearly.

The first thing that blocks your way when you enter - a new IKEA shelf I excitedly assembled with Mum a few days ago, plus the books from the package that just arrived this month. Both are really weighty.

The regions round echo the sound of that from which I've learnt to read, write, speak, laugh and think, amongst other things.

Another shelf then appears near eye-level. Things get dusty quite quickly while they're on it, but I suppose I'll miss cleaning them equally soon.

One resident ornament that depicts my true nature.

My trusty MPB lies just below. I will miss typing on it late into the night - to people and for people. Of course that means missing those people as well. Deeply.

And of course its very sexy Iron Man II wallpaper. Which is, by the way, extremely cool even to girls.

Learning to live without music will be quite deafening I think.

Who needs a lake and a forest when you've got books, a glass table and an iPhone. Argh, no more daily tweets.

The stillness of the night is usually quite admirable from my window.

Right below it, my damsel stands, tall and elegant. I will miss caressing her and making her trill.

To the detriment of our relationship, I will be forced to embrace another kind of longish, black and noisy instrument as my only companion who vociferates without vulgar embellishments. It cannot compare to a Fender, although I will need to defend the country with it.

My bed rests beside my damsel. Poor bolster, there will be no one to hug him to sleep very soon. (Yeah, it's a him. My pillow's a her though.)

What I see when I open my eyes in the morning (assuming I'm facing up with my head tilted slightly to the left and free of eye-crap).

"Mirror mirror on the cupboard door, who's the darkest of them all?"

This is actually an empty contact lens case. I wear my lenses in the washroom. It's just an artistic close-up. You've been conned.

Vestiges of my childhood still reside in my glass cupboard. Eat this bomberman, I will soon have more firepower than you and your pitiful little marble.

And of course, it contains lovely evidence of how important all of you have been to me. This is a really big one, nimbly crafted by Duck III with her own hands. I will miss being heart-warmed when I happen to cast my eyes on random things.

And finally as I type, time ticks away in nonchalance, and I'm that much closer to the next rung on the ladder heavenward.

Jesus, lead my march to Calvary.

A Worthy Excerpt

I didn't expect my attention to be held to the end when I started playing this video; it was really just for fun. I still believe that presuppositional apologetics best pierce at the heart of the postmodern thinker. But that doesn't make the blade of science any duller or less capable of anatomising propositions than it has proven to be. Clearly, unlike how one of the following speakers would contend, nothing happens by accident, not even the click of a mouse.

So here's a worthy excerpt - a small transcript I made of The God Delusion Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox (haha one letter away from John Lennon).

(In response to Dawkin's assertion that 'Design is dead, otherwise one must explain who designed the Designer', and so believing in a Designer leads to an infinite regress.)

It's the old schoolboy question - Who created God? I'm actually very surprised to find it as a central argument in your book. Because it assumes that God is created. And I'm not surprised therefore that you call the book 'The God Delusion' because created gods are, by definition, a delusion.

John Lennox

Professor of Mathematics at Oxford

I think the observation to be made is that scientists, more so than any other profession, cannot escape philosophy. Every tributary comes from the sky and ends up in the sea. Or you could say every tributary comes from the sea and ends up in the sky. Which is partially why I wrote this.

With Authors In April

Did Jesus Really Descend Into Hell?

Just yesterday, my church recited the Apostles' Creed, as millions of other Christians do each Sunday. It includes the statement "I believe in Jesus Christ (...) He descended into hell". Now this is the view of the Catholic Catechism as expressed in Article 5, and also of many Protestants today.

Nevertheless, I think the answer to the titular question is no, because I don't think the Bible teaches it. And I hope to show you why.

Now, there are three texts in the Bible that, if not carefully considered, seem to suggest that Christ did descend into hell.

The first is Ephesians 4:9. It reads, "(In saying, He ascended, what does it mean but that He had also descended into the lower parts of the earth?)"

The reason the "lower parts of the earth" cannot refer to hell is twofold.

Number one, the preposition "of" excludes that meaning. Paul indicates that the destination of Christ's 'descent' in this verse is not to any place outside of the earth, hence the phrase "of the earth". It would thus be a stretch to claim that He went under the earth, namely, to hell.

Number two, the structure of Paul's logical parallelism in Ephesians 4:9 invites us to attribute the same extent of Christ's ascension to His descent. Paul uses the phrase "in saying, He ascended, what does it mean but..." to illustrate an similarity in the degree to which he meant to exact an inversion from the ascension of Christ. Therefore, we should take it to mean something like "Just as Jesus ascended from earth to heaven, what does it mean but that He descended from heaven to earth?" So I don't believe that this text justifies the assertion that Christ descended into hell.

The second text is found in 1 Peter 3:18-20. It reads, "For Christ also suffered once for the sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, in which He went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, because they formerly did not obey, when God's patients waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water."

Again, I think the reason this text does not support the assertion that Christ descended into hell is twofold.

Number one, Peter writes in verse 18 that "Christ also suffered once for the sins", namely, on the Calvary road on earth. Now, Hell is a second suffering. Therefore, if Christ had entered a state of purgatorial existence after His death, it would imply that His atoning work on earth was insufficient. This is dangerous.

Number two, the more consistent interpretation for 1 Peter 3:18-20 is that Christ, through the voice of Noah, went and preached to that generation, whose spirits are now "in prison", namely, Hell. It is noteworthy that Peter never says Christ preached to those spirits while they were in prison. Therefore it probably means that in the days of Noah, Christ preached to them once, and now they are in prison. This interpretation is buttressed by 1 Peter 1:10-11, which says, "Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories."

The third text is found in 1 Peter 4:3-6, which says, "This time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this they are not surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; but they will give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way some people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does."

Once more, I offer two reasons.

Number one, notice the purpose of this 'preaching to the dead'. It can be found in verse 6, where it says, "that though judged in the flesh the way some people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does." A preliminary assertion would be that there is no life in any sense in Hell at all.

Next, we gather contextually from the conjunctional expressions "with respect to this" in verse 4 and "for" in verse 6, that Peter still has in mind the debauched practices of the Gentiles he described in verse 3. To understand his intention behind writing like this, we need only to see the antiparallelism between verses 3 and 6. 1 Peter 4:3 says, "living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry"; 1 Peter 4:6 says, "live in the spirit the way God does".

Therefore, the 'preaching' is an attempt to conform a person who has the heart and mind and life of 1 Peter 4:3, to one who has the heart and mind and life of 1 Peter 4:6, even if this person will be "judged" and will perish in the end (and that we do not know for sure). Hence, it would be illogical to suggest that this message was preached to those who are in hell, because not a single soul in hell is in the capacity to become 1 Peter 4:6.

Number two, from what has been argued above, I read "preached to the dead" as a reference to those who, after being preached to, have since died. Peter never says that Christ went to preach to them after they had died. This fits coherently into the premise established by 1 Peter 1:10-11 and 1 Peter 3:18-20.

Furthermore, I believe that there are other texts that suggest where the spirit of Jesus went after His death. Here are a few:

"And he said, 'Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom. And He said to him, 'Truly I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.'" Luke 23:42-43

"Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, 'Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit!' And having said this He breathed His last." Luke 23:46

"For David says concerning Him, '(...) For You will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption...'" Acts 2:27

In conclusion, I believe there is a very, very weak textual basis for the assertion that Christ descended into Hell between Good Friday and Easter to preach to the imprisoned souls of Hell or Hades. Even if it were the case, it eludes me why Jesus would want to do so. So I think it would be God-honouring and truth-cherishing to simply omit the phrase when reciting the Apostles' Creed.